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VATICAN CITY — Was it “The Case of the Suspicious Pens?” No, it was the opening day of Paolo Gabriele’s trial on a charge of aggravated theft for his alleged part in the “VatiLeaks” scandal.

The eight journalists who formed the pool for our coverage of Gabriele’s trial walked away Saturday with bright orange pens bearing the logo of SIR, the news agency of the Italian bishops’ conference. The free pens were sitting on chairs inside the Vatican courtroom and were placed there by Vatican police in case they were needed after the security check.

Although Vatican television filmed the first few minutes of the formal opening of the trial and the Vatican newspaper photographer took a few still shots at the same time, no other photos or recordings were allowed.

The reporters were not allowed to take their computers or cellphones into the courtroom. And Vatican security checked each reporter’s pen to make sure it had no integrated digital tape recorder.

More than 400 journalists are permanently accredited to the Holy See Press Office and had a theoretical right to attend the trial. The only problem was, the tiny courtroom only has 16 chairs in its “public” gallery. One went to Vatican Radio and one to L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman was there, as was Greg Burke, the U.S. reporter recently hired as a communications adviser to the Vatican Secretariat of State.

The Vatican designated eight places for a pool of accredited journalists. The task of organizing the pool was handled by the International Association of Journalists Accredited to the Vatican (known by its Italian acronym AIGAV). Through a hotly contested vote, members decided that four permanent pool places would go to colleagues from news agencies. The other four places would rotate among journalists for each day of the trial.

The four rotating places were divided: one for other news agencies; one for Italian media; one for non-Italian media; and one for Catholic media.

The numbered slips used to choose the pool. (CNS photo)

Numbers, corresponding to a journalist’s name, were drawn from a bag to determine who would get each of the four places.

I can’t tell you who won. Pool rules say the chosen journalists represent all their colleagues and may not write first-person stories or give interviews saying, “I was there,” or “I personally witnessed this or that.”

In fact, if you can’t get the glory of being able to tell your readers you were there, it’s actually a tough job. The trial is in Italian. The first day, especially, was filled with references to technical legal matters.

Other than Father Lombardi’s announcement that the trial had gotten under way, all other information from the courtroom was embargoed until 15 minutes after the pool’s briefing concluded. The 15 minutes gave pool reporters a chance to start typing and gave TV and radio journalists a chance for a super-quick recap by Father Lombardi.

The embargo covers every form of distributing information, including by Twitter.

The pool must recount everything in Italian for the entire press corps. And members of the pool cannot write anything in their stories that they didn’t share with everyone during the briefing.

3 Responses

I don’t understand this at all. I guess it’s a step up from the dark ages. My understanding is that the Catholic Church’s mission is to expose God’s truth to the entire world. This, however, seems as if they (the Vatican) are trying awefully hard to minimize press exposure concerning this scandal which, though I have not – addmittedly – exhausted all avenues of research concerning it (because I get frustrated after about an hour of getting nowhere), appears to be very much in the dark. Maybe, especially since the Vatican II Council, this is very reminiscent of the dark ages. I’m pretty sure that the truth will eventually come to light, I’m just not sure which decade or century.

The language of the country where the trial is being held is Italian. The press is present. They are taking their notes in Italian and sharing their notes with the other members of the press. The initial press releases are probably in Italian. John should do a search for the information in Italian.

Actually, it’s more to do with the allegations; for instance, I know documents where stolen – what was in those documents and are they true or false? Also, documents are just one way of ‘maybe’ revealing a truth. Word of mouth, if not recorded, is very hard to prove but it doesn’t mean that what was spoken though not recorded cannot be the truth concerning a given situation. I see today that testemony in Italian courts are reworded by the judge and then transcribed into the court records. Evidently too, the judge does not care about “motive” but just “the facts.” Well, given such oddities: what are the facts? What’s going on behind closed doors in the Vatican? This isn’t just about “stealing” & “leaking,” in my opinion. Something is going on in the Vatican that they do not want revealed or at least minimized. Just think about it: without the leak, most likely this would all be a secret. And whatever this pertains to didn’t just start happening at the beginning of this year. It’s been called a “scandal.” Stealing and leaking documents is a crime, not a scandal. What’s this all about? In morning Masses recently at my Church, we’ve been praying for transparency in US govenment. I’m praying for the same transparency in the Vatican. The Vatican does not need a trail to tell its body (The Church) the truth. Really, what I’m concerned with is this: is there any foul play going on in the Vatican? If so, what & how. It’s as if it’s none of our business to know the truth. I think it is our business to always try to seek the truth. Again, the best that we can do is pray – and pray we must – for the leaders of our Church in this given situation. I can understand that personal sins must be confessed in private and never revealed; however, institutional sins can not be treated in the same manner: they must be revealed.